Making use of Research Area and side boarding

Hello!

I know we're already in a middle of a huge overhaul of things, but nevertheless (or is it actually exactly the right time?) there's this thing we've chatted about with another player every once in a while:

Side boarding to add something new to the tournament scene.

Okay, okay, so firstly I'm NOT suggesting something like that is needed! However, there's that possibility to think about. We have some very crucial and powerful silver bullet cards in the game, like Uncoiling, San Loranzo, Scoure of the Enochians and Fear of Mekhet to name a few. They're very useful in almost any tournament deck, but including them might break the flow of many decks that aren't fine tuned for cycle.

Which they should of course be, but it's just. an. idea.

What if we did have a side board for tournaments? Of some kind. I don't know yet.

And what if we used the stupid addition to the game called Research area, which was never really explored further than the initial idea.

Thematically it's sound: you have some silver bullets researched, and you make a break through, advancement, to gain that value.

But of course only the couple of master cards won't do. The rules as such should be revamped and maybe new cards should be included.

Let's start off with a suggestion, that you can include 3 cards in your Research area at the start of the game (we're not calling it a Side board anymore). Then with the help of cards (we already have those) or if certain conditions in either the game or TOURNAMENT STRUCTURE are met, you can move one to your hand. Or something something. I don't know. You tell me.

What I'm not looking forward in the thread:

- Shooting down the idea at first glance (no one's saying it's necessary. If you don't like it, keep it to yourself please)
- The same old "Vampire is broken because of X", or "MTG does it like so, I'm so frustrated in VTES"
- Anything about any "spiritual successors of VTES", but rather discussion of actual VTES (preferably semi-competitive)

What I'm looking forward in the thread:

- Brainstorming
- Looking for benefits instead of faults


Please do discuss.

Some deck types would simply become unplayable. Or you'd end up in an arms race.

Breed deck at your table, grab Scourge. Now every deck that isn't breeding will be able to get Scourge of the Enochians in play. You're waiting for the first Research card to from another Methuselah and it will hose your game. You're essentially removing the ability to play that deck type.

Or you create an arms race. I now have to add a ton of anti-anti-weenie card, if I want to play a breed deck. Hmm, The Uncoiling or Not to Be? Doesn't matter, now I've got to game that game, which you'll want to game. What if you put The Uncoiling in play yourself, so another Methuselah can burn it before the Scourge gets in play. Keeping my copy from working.

Limited choice is part of VtES. You can't defend against everything, you have to pick and choose your battles. Have suboptimal designs to include more defense or optimized designs with more holes, perhaps be somewhere in the middle instead? These choices ensure that sometimes the weenie breed deck wrecks the table, sometimes not, sometimes the big-cap voters do, sometimes not, etc. The ability to plug more holes in your deck seems like an solution in search of a problem.

Also I get that you want to see how this can work. And maybe I just being too negative about it, but the short answer is it can if you want the game to be boring, where everyone plays the same types of deck; otherwise it can't.

Kraus wrote:

Hello!

What I'm not looking forward in the thread:
- Anything about any "spiritual successors of VTES",

Spiritual successor is still the best way to go though.

But seriously, the point of a sideboard isn't to bring in a bunch of silver bullets (although that does happen) but to shore up weaknesses or boost your strengths in a particular matchup. Ideally it would be something like, "Oh, my prey has a lot of intercept, and he knows I'm running lots of stealth. I'll side in some more stealth, or, maybe that's exactly what he'll expect me to do, and I'll play on those expectations by swapping out some of my main-deck stealth cards for my side-board combat suite."

I think the problem with sideboards in VTES is that several very basic cards are so common but powerful enough to qualify as silver bullets. Is Majesty a silver bullet to combat decks? Or Earth Meld? Is Immortal Grapple a silver bullet to the silver bullets Majesty and Earth Meld? I think a flat arms race is to be avoided, but IDK what can be done about it.

Again, ideally sideboarding would be something like, "I know my grand-predator is a vote deck, so I'll side in some extra Animal Magnetism, or Old Friends, or Bewitching Oration, or Iron Glare or whatever to help them or shoot down their votes as needed."

IDK what to say about using the Research Area, but if you limited it to just ~3 cards, then your guaranteeing nothing but silver bullets gets played.

I'm not a fan of the "totally not really disciplines but hey look they have basic and superior but still not a discipline " cards and R&D from HttB.

I feel like additional copies of Research and Development would have made them more bearable (like, Orun and Aye levels of push, promos you didn't intend to take but were stuffed into your bag when you stepped away. You know....) but design space going forward should not push it much,maybe just on like 1 crypt card every other set. It's not great. It's just barely ok ish.

A sideboard will just be used for silver bullets and will basically destroy some decks at tournaments making some decks near undefeatable. So nah.

I actually had to research what research is about, I kinda like the idea, but lacks cards to make it worthwhile, mainly cards that grant you access to your research area.

Some vague ideas:
- Something to put cards from your ashheap to your research area.
- A minion card that allows you to play a card directly from your research area.
- Equipment that allows the bearer to play cards from your research area.
- Card: Remove X cards from your research area to do Y (turn it into a resource)
- Card: Remove X cards from your research area to gain +X bleed (Could be a nossy card!).
- Card: Remove X cards from your research area to burn an event.
- Vamp: During a referendum this vamp can burn X cards from your research area to gain X votes.

There's plenty of things you could do with a research area, but you can make the exact same design ideas with *drumroll* the ashheap. There's one huge benefit with a research area though, no one can touch it but you, which you cannot say about the ashheap...